Текст книги "Revealed to Him"

Автор книги: Jen Frederick

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

“I’ve read you.” I don’t get starstruck. I’ve worked with too many celebrities to be awed by them, but I am standing about twenty feet away from the person the New York Times has called “a revolutionary new eye into the future.” “I thought M. Kannan was a man” is my first thought.

I know who you are.

The threat takes on a different dimension.

She snorts, interrupting her counting. “Male readers don’t read female authors. It’s more lucrative to be gender neutral, especially when you’re writing science fiction.”

The words rush out, as if she’s saying them all in one breath, but at least she’s talking and thinking and not passing out. The panic attack is tapering off.

Mentally I run through my bookcases and realize I have embarrassingly few female authors on my shelf. “Like I said before, men are dumb.”

“Yes, yes they are.” When she half laughs, I exhale and realize I’d been holding my breath, waiting to run into the bedroom. Phobias are a bitch to fight off. Too many of my brothers-in-arms suffer from them and mental illnesses are viewed differently than physical illnesses. If a friend is sick with the flu, or God forbid, something worse like cancer, everyone is sympathetic. But depression? Fear of being in your own head? Folks just want you to get over it and if you can’t, you’re a weak-ass sadsack.

I don’t know why I don’t have PTSD. It’s not because I’m better or stronger than my squad mates—more likely that I’m just a cold bastard. That’s what my youngest sister claims.

“I’m going to need you to sign my books.” She has a big-screen television, one of those curved ones, and three different game consoles underneath. Whatever happened in her past, it hadn’t killed her love for the medium. I finish my inspection of the interior and walk to the kitchen.

“Just bring them over. You know how to get in.” Her sultry voice is about an octave lower than earlier, and scratchy, as if she’s spent a long time screaming. A quick vision of sheets, bedposts, and an arched back flash through my mind.

All right, Jake. Get a hold of yourself. It’s only been a few weeks since I last got laid so I’m not sure why I’m having such a visceral reaction to this woman whose face I haven’t seen.

“I’m almost done here.”

The last room is her bedroom and while I need to see inside of it, I know she’s not ready. Not today. Resolutely I turn away. “I’m leaving now.”

At the kitchen counter, I pull out a small jar of powder and a brush. “A pre-Hollywood invention. Fingerprint dusting powder so you know where I was in your apartment,” I write on a notepad I find on the counter.

I hope my token apology for interfering with her life, causing a slight panic attack, is offset by this. As I climb the stairs to the top floor, so it looks like I was with Graham the whole time, and then travel down the elevator to the lobby, something about the whole sweep of the apartment nags at me. Was it that I didn’t get to see her bedroom and complete my assessment of her security needs? Was it that I didn’t get to take Natalie’s measure by looking her in the eye?

It isn’t until my feet hit the sidewalk that I realize that I want Natalie to like me, not to be afraid of me. I look down at my arm, the one that is missing a hand, and then the leg, the one that is missing the calf and foot. Turning around, I stare up at the window in the far right corner. There’s a movement there, a twitch of the curtain. I hold up my good hand and shove the bad one in my pocket.

No, let’s be honest. I want Natalie to be attracted to me.

CHAPTER SIX

JAKE

Her call comes just seconds after the window curtain twitches.

“You left me a present.”

“It’s a thank-you for letting me in. I figured it would give you some peace of mind to know where I was and what I touched.”

“I didn’t let you in. You picked the lock!”

Her indignation makes me smile. I give her another wave and walk toward Hudson. We’re both on the West Side so I decide to walk back to my office rather than catch a cab. I need to clear my head and the exercise would do my leg good. “You let me in. Or at least you gave me permission by going to the bedroom.”

“So now you know all my secrets.” She sounds nervous, as if I’m going to start blabbing to reporters about what I saw in her apartment.

“They’re still your secrets. I’m hired to protect you, not to bring you more harm by revealing your secrets. That’s why we have a nondisclosure agreement.” As the sun warms my skin, I wonder what it’s like to be locked inside the four walls of an apartment. Does she open her balcony windows? How often does she feel the sun on her face or the wind in her hair? “Is the author thing a big deal?”

“Meaning will it hurt my sales if it is revealed that I’m not male? Who knows? I already don’t do book signings,” she sighs. “I didn’t want to use a male pseudonym because of where it got me before. I had to fight for the ambiguous first initial, but I knew if I used my real name it would be tainted by everything that had gone on in the past. I wanted the books to succeed or fail on their own. Not because people felt sorry for me or because they hated me for something other than my writing.”

“That makes sense. How many people know you’re M. Kannan?” That could narrow my suspect list considerably.

“Oliver. His parents. My therapist. My editor.” She ticks them off one by one. “There might be a few other people in the publishing house, but we also have a nondisclosure agreement and they’d pay hefty damages if they broke it.”

“But the resulting publicity could be good for them,” I suggest.

A foul stench hits me as I reach Hudson. Being indoors isn’t all that bad. Natalie’s apartment smelled like cinnamon and lemons.

“I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but we’re doing pretty well on the publicity part.”

A metro bus speeds by wrapped in an advertisement for the upcoming movie. “Good point. Do you think the note is from someone in your past or your current life?”

“Past,” she replies firmly. “It has to be. My life . . . it’s so small now and everyone in it is a friend. I can’t imagine someone I know and love doing this to me.”

Just because you don’t want something to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t. But I suspect she knows this. “If it’s someone from three or four years ago, then he has a real hard-on for you to be coming back after all this time. Can you make a list of the most determined guys who threatened you?”

“It wasn’t just guys. A few of the worst were women.”

That surprised me. “They threatened physical harm?”

“No, but they sent me other stuff. Women know how to hurt other women so well.” She pauses. “Will it be very difficult if I don’t want to delve into the past? I mean . . . yes, God, I did not like getting the note, and yes, it set me off, but digging through all that shit is only going to make me more stressed out.”

“Why don’t you have someone forward it to me?” My leg is starting to ache. I probably shouldn’t have planned to walk this far with this prosthetic. I’d traded out the blade for my normal device with the vacuum-sealed socket and the carbon foot. It’s not made for strenuous activity, such as walking forty blocks. And while I’m fairly comfortable with the fact that I’m walking around with a fake limb on my leg and arm, I don’t enjoy the looks of pity when I have to turn on my vacuum pump to adjust the fit of my socket. It’s noisy as fuck and it makes it harder to convince people that they really don’t have to feel sorry for me when I’m grimacing in pain because the damn device isn’t fitting well as my stump swells or shrinks.

I face the street to hail a cab.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Like what?”

She takes a deep breath. “How about a picture of what you’re wearing?”

I look down at my jeans, Windbreaker, and T-shirt. “It’s not flannel. I promise.”

“No picture?” She’s disappointed. Maybe she wants to see my prosthetics. Did Oliver tell her? She never said a word before. When I meet women, it’s the first thing they check out. I don’t hide it, because if they’re turned off by the fact that my left hand and foot are made of steel, plastic, and synthetics, I’d rather know that up front than later when I’m taking my clothes off. But for some reason I don’t want to acknowledge, I don’t want the focus on those things just yet.

“I’m six feet three. Weigh about two sixty.”

She’s silent. Am I too tall for her? Too short? A cab stops as I’m scratching the side of my shorn head. Why do I care?

“So not a runner’s body?”

“I’m not sure what a runner’s body is.” That’s not the comment I expected. “Because I do run.”

“How long?”

“Depends, but usually about six miles a day.”

“Six miles?” she yelps. “That’s like half a marathon.”

I cover the phone and give my address to the cabbie who stops. Returning to Natalie, I correct her. “It’s a quarter of a marathon.”

“It’s a marathon compared to what I run.”

As if the distance is what’s offensive. Of all the things about me I figured she wouldn’t like, the fact I work out isn’t one of them. Most women like my body, if they can get over the stumps. They coo over my muscles and wonder how I can even have any on my left side. I’ve had more than one run her tongue over the ridges of my abdomen. The last woman I slept with—a financial reporter, whom I stopped seeing because she was a little too snoopy for my taste—told me that my physique and big cock made up for a lot of deficits. Come to think of it, I probably dumped her for more than a few reasons.

“You have a treadmill so how much do you run?” I ask.

“Three miles with no resistance either. I run flat with no incline.”

“Three miles is a lot.”

“I could never keep up with you.”

“Did you plan on racing me?”

“No, but it’d be nice to run outside.”

I’ve never run with a woman, never wanted to. But I could picture Natalie running beside me along the Hudson River, telling me I’m going too fast or too slow in her sultry voice. My jeans start to get a little tight and I shake my head. Getting turned on by just a voice is a first for me.

“If you go early enough, the route along the Hudson is pretty empty.” I rub my chin. Am I asking her to run with me? Maybe the cell phone radiation is scrambling my brains. This is probably the longest conversation I’ve had with a woman not in my family.

The cabbie stops at my townhouse and I hand him two twenties and climb out. “Keep the change,” I mouth.

“Yeah, man, thanks,” he says and his voice is an intrusion on whatever weird intimacy that Natalie and I had developed over the phone.

She senses it too, because she clears her throat awkwardly. “Gosh, look at the time. I can’t believe I kept you on the phone this long. I’m so sorry. You must think I’m totally friendless and weird. Anyway, um, send me a bill for this and whatever else.”

“Natalie,” I say gently. “I enjoyed talking to you.”

“Um, right. Just, ah, send me the bill.”

Then she hangs up.

With a sigh, I tuck the phone into my pocket. We have a connection, a different sort of one, but I think we’re both caught off guard. I did enjoy talking to her, and generally speaking, I’m not a phone person. I text, I email, but spending thirty minutes on the phone isn’t something I’ve done in a long time. The lights to Tanner Security, which is housed on the ground floor and garden level of the townhouse that I bought with the inheritance I received when I was twenty-one, are off. I glance upward to see if my sister is home.

All the rooms are dark with the exception of the front bedroom on the fourth floor. She’s home, then, but doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

My sister and I were close once. When I was shipped home after my unfortunate run-in with an IED in Afghanistan, she was still in high school. I hadn’t wanted to live at home and I hadn’t wanted to have a live-in nurse, so Sabrina volunteered to come and stay with me. It worked out great. By the time she began attending Columbia, I’d become self-sufficient again, learning how to redo simple things I’d once taken for granted—such as buttoning my shirts. I solved that by wearing pullovers. She’d since moved out, but still spent a lot of time with me.

Yet somewhere along the line, possibly the moment she met Tadashubu Kaga, she stopped appreciating having me as a big brother and started accusing me of interfering with her life.

While I admire Kaga and view him as a friend, I don’t want him anywhere near my innocent baby sister. He’s a powerful and wealthy man with very specific taste in women.

I finger the phone in my pocket, wondering what Natalie would say about this. She and Graham seem pretty close. I have the phone out and in my hand before I realize what I’m doing. I just met this woman. Hell, I hadn’t even met her. I talked to her on the phone for nearly thirty minutes and I’ve been inside her apartment, but we aren’t even friends and I’m thinking of calling an agoraphobe for fucking advice?

I need to go inside and take a long cold shower.

When the phone rings, my heart thumps like a fucking twelve-year-old’s until I see my mom’s face on the screen.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Are you still working? I can hear the noise on the street. You should be inside having dinner. It’s nearly eight o’clock at night.” She sighs, an exhale of frustration.

My mother has been nagging me about working too much and this moment of insanity is proof she’s right.

“I’m going in right now and eating a cow,” I reassure her.

“Save some for your sister,” she replies. “She’s looking tense and hungry these days.”

The last thing I want to think about is what might be causing Sabrina’s unhappiness. I shuffle that thought toward the back of my head and lean back against the stone railing of my stoop and enjoy the brisk night air as Mom catches me up on the news of her friends. She murmurs something about my ex looking me up but that’s another thing I don’t care to pay any attention to. After I promise to feed Sabrina, Mom lets me go.

I put the phone away and jog up the stairs. The front door has a lock and key, but it’s for show. Access to my townhouse is gained through a biometric hand scanner and voice recognition. I press my hand against the pane of glass in the door that serves as the scanner and give an audible command. The three locks disengage and a chirp of the alarm acknowledges my entrance.

I wonder if Natalie would feel more secure with a system like this—

Stop, I order myself.

This is not me. I don’t obsess over women. What I need to do is sit down, evaluate what I know, suggest a security system, and start viewing her as a client, not a potential bedmate.

In the kitchen, I find that Sabrina hasn’t totally written me off. There’s a plate of pasta covered in plastic wrap with a note that says “reheat, two minutes.”

“Bless you, my child,” I murmur as I stick the plate into the microwave. I can boil water, operate a microwave, and cook a steak. That’s about the extent of my cooking skills.

“You’re welcome.”

I hide my surprise and turn nonchalantly to lean against the counter. Sabrina stands at the entry of the kitchen, her arms crossed and her mouth pressed into a hard line. Despite her angry stance, I see confusion in her eyes. She loves and hates me at this moment.

“Mom called to make sure you were eating.”

“I ate earlier. Tiny came up an hour ago and said you were out on a call.”

“New client,” I answer. Tiny’s an investigator for Tanner Security, but she’s also married to Ian, whose best friend is Kaga, so I know where this is headed—nowhere good. The only mystery is how long it will take for us to get to the subject of him.

“Is it Kaga? Is he in trouble in any way?” she blurts out.

Not long, apparently. I pinch my nose because just the thought of her wanting to know about him gives me a headache. “Bri, honey,” I begin, but before I can finish my thought, she interrupts me.

“What? I can’t even ask about him?”

“What purpose does it serve for you even to imagine yourself in a relationship with him?”

“We’re friends.” She’s stubborn.

“If you were friends, then you wouldn’t need to ask how he’s doing.” Immediately I regret my words as she turns ashen and the skin around her lips whitens as her lips thin. “Aw, fuck me, honey. I’m sorry. I love you and I just want to make sure that you’re happy in life.” Pushing away from the counter, I move toward her, but she backs away.

“Really? You could have fooled me. Every action you take is designed to keep me away from people I love!”

She loves Kaga? She doesn’t even know him. I reach a hand toward her. “Sorry you feel that way.”

“If you were truly sorry, you wouldn’t do this. You’re only sorry that I’m mad at you.” She whirls on one foot and runs out of the kitchen and up the stairs. My leg aches too much to run after her and frankly, she’s right.

I’m sorry she’s mad, but I’m not wrong about her and Kaga. Their differences are too vast.

The microwave dings and my stomach growls in response.

For a moment, I let my forehead rest on the heel of my hand. Maybe I’m thinking about Natalie because she’s the one woman in my life that I haven’t disappointed . . . yet.

CHAPTER SEVEN

NATALIE

“In my next book, I’m killing off the protagonist on the first page.”

“Because you’re tired of success and you want to shit all over your readers?” Daphne doesn’t even look up from the magazine she’s paging through as she predicts the demise of my career.

“How can I write about anything even remotely brave and heroic when I can’t even put my hand on the doorknob without puking and fainting?”

“It’s fiction. You can’t do martial arts either, but your famous protagonist, Soren Blake, is a master at it. You haven’t flown in outer space and fucked three alien dudes, or if you have, you are completely holding out on me.”

“Why are we friends again?” I stare out onto Howard Street, wanting the six-feet-three, 260-pound Jake Tanner to reappear. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him the other day and my image of him is fuzzy. I’ve crafted him with a Seth Rogen physique, which is comforting for me. The guys with the real hard bodies are usually the biggest jerks. In my fantasy, Jake Tanner is a sweetheart who helps old ladies across the street and talks to virtual strangers on the phone for thirty minutes or so. The fact that it isn’t entirely a fantasy makes it all the more amazing. This guy texted me, talked to me, and flirted with me, all without meeting in person. He knows I’m fucked up in the head, but still made time to chat.

How could I not tumble head over heels in lust with him? I don’t even want to stop the fall. It’s harmless to have a crush—harmless and a little exciting. The rush of blood to my fingertips, the tingle up my spine? That’s not due to fear, but excitement. I welcome those feelings. I want them.

“We aren’t merely friends. I’m your editor, and a kick-ass one at that.”

“I wish you could edit my life.” Put me in a story with a hot security guy. He falls madly in love with me despite the fact that I don’t like leaving my apartment and that the prospect of meeting new people sends me to my bed for several days.

Daphne sighs and throws the magazine aside. “Isn’t that what Terrance is for? What does your therapist have to say about all of this?”

Dr. Joshua Terrance is probably the only one who knows the full extent of my crazy. “Too much. I preferred it when I had minimal contact with him.” Minimal for me was once a month. Since I got the note, I’ve been talking to him nearly every day . . . except for yesterday, when I spent thirty minutes on the phone with Jake.

“Good thing you earn so much money selling books, or you wouldn’t be able to afford him.”

“I know.” Daphne’s sympathetic look borders on pity, so I gaze outside again, away from it and toward the direction of uptown where Tanner Security is. In different circumstances, I could leave my apartment and take the subway uptown. From there I could walk a few blocks and end up outside Tanner Securities. I’d march in wearing some saucy dress and high heels and tell the receptionist to hold all of Tanner’s calls because he was going to be too busy servicing me to help anyone else.

A tingle of excitement causes me to clench my legs tightly together. I had a few naughty dreams about Jake last night. Ones that I shove into my mental closet so I don’t get flushed and aroused while I’m sitting with Daphne.

“It’s been so long. I think I’ve forgotten what sex is like.”

“It’s good, just FYI.”

“I keep thinking about him.” I run the back of my fingers along my collarbone wondering what it would be like if they were Jake’s and not mine.

“The asshole who sent you the note?”

“No, Jake. The security guy.”

“I have no idea who he is.”

“He’s tall and has a potbelly.”

“You let him in?” She sounds shocked, and that annoys me even if it would be a giant surprise that I let someone other than Oliver and Daphne inside.

“No. He told me.”

“He told you he was tall and had a potbelly? How did you have this conversation?”

“I asked him what he looked like.”

“And did you ask him what he was wearing at the time? Are you sure this is an actual security person and not some rent-a-cop?” She looks at me as if my conversation is entirely fiction, like my books.

“Oliver hired him. And I looked him up on the Internet. He’s got a real website, but no pictures. Isn’t that weird? Like, does a person exist if there isn’t a picture of him on the Internet? It’s like the Internet version of ‘if a tree falls in the forest.’”

“Not everyone is on the Internet twenty-four/seven like you.”

“True.”

“Why do you think he has a potbelly?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. He said he weighed 260 pounds, and based on the background in his bio, he might have muscular arms and stuff, but he’s probably soft around the middle. Right? I mean, that’s like a hundred pounds more than me.”

“Oliver weighs a hundred pounds more than you and there’s not an ounce of fat on him anywhere.”

“He’s a football player. They work out every day. This guy eats donuts in his office.”

“You have made some weird assumptions.”

He needs to be average. Really average, because the only way some guy would ever be interested in me was if he had no other options. My fantasies have always been weirdly realistic. Like I never fantasized about running into Ryan Gosling at the airport and having him rub his fine form against mine, but I was guilty of inserting a few random guys from around the city into my sexier thoughts. That was back in the day when I actually got outside and could see random people on a regular basis.

And these days all I have are fantasies. I don’t, of course, imagine being in a crowded rave, but I do dream of a day when I can walk outside, go to a bookstore, see a movie.

There are a whole host of things I could be doing, like visiting the set of my book’s movie, to which I’ve been invited more than once.

But I can’t and so my life has shrunk to the four walls of my apartment, three people, and the things I can conjure in my own head.

Today and yesterday, Jake is playing a big starring role in those imaginary happenings.

It’s completely harmless—for both him and me.

Outside there is only the regular traffic. I see all these people and I know—I know—that not one of them down there would hurt me, but the minute I try to go outside, my heart seizes. I can’t breathe. I start sweating like it’s 110 degrees and I’m running wind sprints. Even getting near the front door can cause me to hyperventilate. All that Jake will ever be is a fantasy. “It’s so fucking stupid, the power our minds have over us.”

“It’s also what makes you a great writer. Your imagination is big and powerful and sometimes it’s too powerful for even you.” She sets down the magazine.

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”

The chair squeaks as Daphne pushes out of it to join me at the window. “Think of it this way. Two weeks ago you were telling me you couldn’t write another word. Since the note came, you’ve been writing like you were possessed.”

“Because I am a madwoman. I have the actual crazy person diagnosis.” I don’t tell her that last night I got out of bed and wrote the steamiest scene I’d ever put on the page. My readers would probably be shocked, and in the end, I probably won’t include it, but damn, had it been hot.

“You are not mad. I know Dr. Terrance doesn’t like you to use that word. Hell, I don’t like you to use that word.”

I don’t like it either, but sometimes when I take a good hard look at myself, I can’t shake that I am not right in the head. The glass feels blessedly cool against my skin. I’m somewhere along the scale between normal and not, otherwise I could step outside my apartment without wanting to puke. I need to force myself. “Daphne, would you—?”

“No!” she nearly shouts. Hurrying, she tries to explain, but there’s no explanation necessary. I know what she’s going to say and I don’t blame her. “We are not going to the elevator again. I’m sorry, Natalie, but I just can’t. That was terrible. I know you want to recover, but what’s the rush?”

“It’d just be nice to go to Barneys. Try on shoes. Maybe go eat a Shake Shack burger.” See Jake Tanner in person. Put on a sexy dress and seduce him. Have some intimate contact with a real human being for the first time in forever!

“All those things can be delivered here. Stay here. Write. Get better. Before you know it, we’ll be having lunch at David Burke’s in Bloomingdale’s.”

“I know. Isn’t New York great?” I say without enthusiasm.

After Daphne leaves, I heave the biggest sigh known to womankind and then slump down in front of the French doors that lead out onto the balcony. The room-darkening curtains are pushed to the side. The sun’s rays burning through the glass are about the only sunshine and outdoors I get. Two weeks ago, I was able to go up to Oliver’s penthouse apartment. We had dinner with his parents, who were visiting from Ohio.

Two weeks ago, I was standing outside the subway stop. Sure, I hadn’t been able to make myself go down the stairs and into the tunnel. That was my next goal, though. I would’ve made it—no. I’m going to make it.

It’s happening. In the future. All my progress isn’t relegated to the past.

What I need is for the good doctor to write me a prescription for elevator visits, because frankly with both Oliver and Daphne telling me that I need to stay inside, I’m beginning to wonder if I am pushing too hard.

Picking up my phone, I press the second contact on my Favorites screen. Favorites is a misnomer. If I never had to see or talk to Dr. Terrance again, I would be so happy. He’s not a bad guy but he’s a visible reminder of my psychosis. If I could, I’d make a list called “Un-favorites I have to stay in contact with.” I wouldn’t have gotten to the point of being able to stand outside without his aid. Even so, every visit and phone call is just a reminder of my weakness, my mental illness.

While another person might have fired him and found a new doctor, Daphne recommended Dr. Terrance, and I’ll admit that up until two weeks ago his methods have worked.

“Hello, Natalie, how are you today?”

“Not bad, Dr. Terrance. I was wondering about getting out of the apartment.”

He tut-tuts, the clicks of his tongue against the roof of his mouth as clear through the phone line as if he is standing next to me. It’s just as annoying in person.

“And what happened the last time that you ventured out?” he asks. Psychiatrists ask questions—at least that’s what I’ve learned. If I wrote a book featuring a psychiatrist, I’d wear out my question mark key. Were you sad when your parents died? When Oliver went away to college, were you upset? Why did you move to New York? When the person called you a whore and threatened to send dogs to rape you, were you scared?

Yes, yes, because Oliver came here, yes. He always knew the answers, but wanted me to say them, as if saying the answer, acknowledging my pain, somehow lessened the sting. It hasn’t yet, but I keep going back to him because I did get better. I was improving and I’m not going to let some note from some faceless neckbeard keep me from going outside again.

“I made it to the elevator.” I project as much gaiety as possible.

“And then you felt faint, vomited, and lost consciousness. You frightened your cousin, who called me in a panic and, had you not been revived, he would have taken you to the hospital where you would likely have been admitted—at least overnight—for observation.”

Hot-cheeked, I remain silent because his recitation is terribly accurate and nothing scares me more than being admitted. The feeling of suffocation inside the white walls of the psych ward with the antiseptic smells and the constant interruptions by the nurses and aides is a million times worse than the fear that overtakes me when I try to leave my apartment.

“Natalie?” he prompts.

Natalie with a question mark. I answer with my own query. “When do you think I’ll be able to leave my apartment?”

“It all depends. I’ve written you a scrip for Tofranil and you should take four 25 mg tablets a day. With food,” he adds as an afterthought. “Stay away from triggers like visitors and leaving your apartment. Once you’ve been on the dose for seven days and your anxiety is down to manageable levels, you may call me and we’ll try the elevator together, which is how we should have done it in the first place, isn’t that right?”

I ignore that question, which probably doesn’t require a response anyway. Dr. Terrance likes to be with me for every big “breakthrough.”

“Are you saying that I shouldn’t see Oliver or Daphne?”

“You can talk to them on the phone, but no in-person contact.”

“How am I supposed to eat?”

“Order in and have the food deposited outside your door as you usually do. You are still comfortable with the doormen delivering your goods, correct?”

I drop my head into my hands. Seven days of forced solitude? Well, Daphne would say to look at the bright side and think of all the writing I’ll get done. “Yeah, I’m okay with the doormen. Does it have to be Tofranil? I feel like a zombie on that.”

“You and Prozac have never gotten along, Natalie, or have you forgotten?”

“No.” Prozac makes me violently ill.

“Good. Take the Tofranil and let’s get ready to face the elevator together, hmm?”